Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

NNSL (Apr 12/99) - It may be a long way from Dewfrost to the DEWline, but Dan Marion says he feels right at home in the North.

The new commissioner of the Northwest Territories, Marion was born close to the U.S. border in Dewfrost, Man., some 53 years ago, but has spent more than half his life North of 60 and cultivated both a colourful career and extensive family here.

At home in Rae-Edzo on Good Friday, Marion was relaxing with his six grandchildren and getting set to take up his new duties as commissioner. It was, then, a fitting time for Marion to sit back and reflect on a half-century journey that led him from being a representative of the Manitoba farming community to representing all of the NWT.

One point Marion makes very clear is that he is not a politician -- at least not in the traditional sense of the word. He describes himself as a volunteer and a doer who has fallen into leadership roles and political office by virtue of his penchant for activity.

Marion said his activism began a long time ago, back in Manitoba where, as a teenager, he belonged to the local 4H Club and got involved in public speaking and conducting meetings.

Obviously a people-person, Marion contemplated travel and sales after high school. In 1965, he began a career with the Hudson's Bay Company that would span 24 years and provide him with all the opportunities for adventure he could have hoped for.

Marion's first posting was at the isolated Lansdowne House in northern Ontario, where he stayed for three years before being promoted to manager and getting his first chance to see the true North --in Fort Norman.

"It was like night and day compared to Ontario," Marion said. "Although the population of Fort Norman was smaller, about 200 people, it was already the beginning of an economic boom here...the sales in Fort Norman were almost three times higher."

Marion also said he was anything but intimidated moving North of 60 and easily fell into an Arctic lifestyle.

"I think I was an adventurer all my life," he said. "I bought a Ski-Doo...and would even go to visit a nurse at another post 400 kilometres away, have a cup of coffee, turn around and come back."

Marion said he still remembers "Norman" fondly and retains many friends from those days, including Ethel Blondin-Andrew, Paul Andrew, the Hardy boys and the Gildays. Norman also represented his first foray into organized "politics" -- as president of the community club and an elected member of the settlement council.

"It isn't necessarily politics -- it's just participating," Marion stressed. "Sometimes when you participate, you end up being in charge."

Marion was also participating in a Hudson's Bay revolution. For decades, supplies were dependent on barge and ship transport but by the late '60s the company began to organize air charters and year-round supply runs. Helping the various posts make the transition, Marion got the chance to visit communities right across the territory and gain an even wider insight into Northern life.

Some people say you either love or hate the Arctic and that there's no in between.

"I loved it the day I stepped off the airplane," is how Marion responded to that particular question, adding, "I love the winter more than the summer because you can travel...I can just jump on a Ski-Doo and travel for hundreds of kilometres."

But Marion didn't fall in love with the North alone. After being posted to Fort Rae in 1971 (as Rae-Edzo was then known) he also fell in love with one of its inhabitants. Shortly afterward, Marion and Lena Zoe (or "my good lady" as he refers to her) bought a home and started a family.

Marion said he never had a problem fitting into life in Rae, crediting his experience growing up in rural Manitoba -- where his French town bordered a German town, a Ukrainian town and the Rosa Reserve -- and working among the isolated Dene at Fort Lansdowne.

"Fort Norman and Rae were much more modern areas, but I still had that older, cultural experience to draw on -- like going to a funeral or knowing how to fit in," he said.

Fitting in and participating is what got Marion connected. He started up Rix Trucking in 1976, and left the Bay in 1980 when he was asked to lead the Rae-Edzo Dene Band Development Corporation.

"I've served for over 25 years with different organizations -- the school board, the hamlet council, and six years and three terms as mayor," he said, "but I don't think I ran for anything -- people would ask me to step forward, and I did."

"When I was re-elected as mayor, I didn't run a campaign but had one meeting where I said, 'Well, I'm here if you want me.'"

Marion said his philosophy of activism has applied to all aspects of his life, including his family. He and Lena had four children of their own and have fostered another eight over the years.

"In those days you have to understand that if a child needed help, there were no social services people -- you just got involved," he said, adding, "That's the direction I'd like to push the territories in."

Two of the few Northern things Marion hasn't adopted include language and hunting.

"I find that when someone tries to learn another language, they never learn it right and pronounce it badly," he said, adding with a businessman's insight, "and the beauty of translating is that when you're trading, it gives you time to think out your answers carefully."

As for hunting, Marion said one adventure that involved carrying a skinned moose through a blackfly-infested forest was more than enough for an ex-farm boy.

"I was used to raising animals, and knowing if you wanted a chicken, there's your chicken, and if you wanted a pig, there's your pig," he said.

But as someone who values his own roots, Marion said he also enjoys helping others discover theirs. He and his wife have dabbled in genealogy, tracing their own family trees and, for the past five years, assisted community members in uncovering theirs -- working their way through a labyrinth of church records and registries.

And while uncovering and reflecting on the past, Marion is already eyeing the future -- already imagining how he can make the office of the commissioner as active and colourful as he'd like and how he can inspire the people of the Northwest Territories to share his motivation.

In a March 29 statement congratulating Marion on his appointment as commissioner, Western Arctic MP Ethel Blondin-Andrew said, "his dogged determination will serve the government of the Northwest Territories and the people of the Northwest Territories well."

"She was making a pun," Marion explained, "My style is very doggedly -- when I go after something I get it...and she's also referring to the fact that I come from a Dogrib community."

But whatever the reason, there's little doubt Marion's dogged label will stick.